


a single crumb of common sense

by sprx77



Series: Kinktober is 20/20 [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, F/M, Frottage, Haruno Sakura-centric, Multi, Sparring, Team as Family, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:41:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26809807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprx77/pseuds/sprx77
Summary: “YOU!” Sakura yells, shoving to her feet and pointing aggressively; this is as familiar as breathing to Team Seven.Kakashi tries to dodge, book nowhere in sight, focus deadly—but Sakura is faster.or: Sakura lands, sixteen and bloodied, in a Konoha that has never been destroyed.Kinktober Day 3:mind controlor dom/sub
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Kinktober is 20/20 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953403
Comments: 20
Kudos: 578





	a single crumb of common sense

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3: dom/sub
> 
> It's there if you squint
> 
> A warning that Sakura is 16 and Sasuke and Naruto are 13 here, and there's a brief smut scene, if that isn't your jam. Mind the 'underage' tag

Sakura lands, sixteen and bloodied, in a Konoha that has never been destroyed.

Okay, so it was once dinged a little by a rampaging demon, but that was only a mild inconvenience compared to what _Orochimaru_ had done, which was in turn nothing compared to Pein, etcetera.

She turns unerringly in the direction of her first goal, orientating not to the mostly-unfamiliar layout of a city more ghost than memory, but to the beacon of chakra she knows as well as her own.

Naruto opens the door with pajamas on, including a sleep cap slumping on his messy head.

He does a doubletake when he sees her.

“Sakura?”

“There was a jutsu accident.” She explains, smiling helplessly to see him like this, young and alive. “I’m a couple years older than you.”

“I… guess?” He scratches the back of his head without remembering the nightcap. It falls and she catches it without thought, righting it before his hand can even twitch away. His sleepy eyes widen in surprise.

“You’re so fast!” He laughs, delighted, then _gasps_. “Oh, wow, Sakura! You get so pretty!”

He then shoves both hands over his mouth, eyes the size of dinner plates.

“Thank you.” She laughs, delighted. Just, all over delighted. “Can I come in? I need somewhere to stay.”

“Uh, sure!” He opens the door wider, then seems to think better of it. “Um, it’s kinda a mess though.”

“I don’t mind.” She promises, stepping close to him as she walks. He’s wary; he’s likely never had someone in his space before, much less in his home.

His breath catches in his chest as she brushes past him.

“Um, um, um!” He hurries to catch up to her. “I have ramen, ya know!”

“Ramen doesn’t sound bad.” She blinks, almost surprised. “Huh. Actually, you know what? What if you send a clone to Ichiraku’s?”

His eyes light up, starry, then dim unacceptably.

“That’s a super great idea I am totally going to use _so_ much later, but I don’t… really… have the cash for that, ya know?”

He mumbles and she steps forward almost before she’s aware of moving, smoothing back his hair and pressing a kiss to his forehead. She ignores the way he freezes, caught like a Nara faced with hard work.

“My treat.” She tells him, digging in her bag for one of the lesser-used scrolls. Everyone in the world had been dead, or near enough; they looted the corpses. Weapons to one scroll, clothes to another. Money had meant nothing pretty quickly, so it was shoved in a scroll to get it out of the way, mostly in the early days when they could still imagine rebuilding.

She unsummons a good chunk of it, flicks through Kiri and Oto until she finds some good Konoha notes, and peels off a gracious plenty—probably. Sakura can’t remember the last time she considered _economics_.

It’s just _ramen_. What can it cost, 100,000 Ryo? That’s the cost of a good B-rank and she has plans to eat enough to feed an army.

“Maybe several clones.” She suggests, while Naruto is still boggling at the amount she’s holding. She adds another 10,000 note just to be safe. What were taxes like at this time in her youth? She hadn’t ever bought anything on her own until well after the Oto-Suna Invasion, and Sage knew what that had done to the economy. It involved taxes or something, probably.

None of her business.

Naruto, not one to hew and haw when it comes to a hot meal, wavers only briefly before conjuring the masses. One clone yoinks the money out of her hand with a saucy smile and a wink; another blushes but smiles shyly at her; the third smiles like dawn breaking and waves on his way out.

She loves every facet of her teammate. That he is so open here, despite the relative lack of any support, is a gift. It’s also dangerous; she _remembers_ this Naruto, so desperate for any sort of validation. When they got older he got dimmer, grimmer, struggling to shoulder the world entire; his solutions were more practical, more lined with blood and determination, for all that the core of him remained a stalwart burning sun.

This Naruto has not learned his limits, nor acknowledged that they might exist somewhere on the far-off horizon. This Naruto is one to whom someone halfway kind could say: bring me a nation, and he _would_.

God of Death, he wouldn’t even _hesitate._

“So, so—ano—you said you needed somewhere to stay?” Naruto peered up at her, curious, expressive. “What do you mean?”

“I think I was out at the market.” She looks at her own hands, the same ones she saw an hour ago; they are not the dainty hands of her tremulous girlhood. “I did that, sometimes. Got up early and went to go look at dresses I was too afraid to buy.”

It boggles the mind that she was ever too hesitant to do _anything_. Also, the mere concept of _windowshopping_. Sakura shook her head, laughing.

“I don’t know what I’m going to say to my parents. Hadn’t really thought about it, if I’m honest.”

“Well, _I_ don’t know.” Naruto shrugs with his whole body. Half of his personality has developed with the sole purpose of attracting as much attention as possible, desperate for it. The other half is pure willpower, if she had to throw around labels.

 _You’re the son of a princess and a god of shinobi_ , she wants to say, and the ‘princess’ part is _truly_ underselling things. Princess of the lost empire, force of nature, sacrifice and host to the most powerful demon alive—

Sakura thought of ‘flee on sight’ and how Minato had almost garnered a new designation, ‘drop your weapons and beg for your life,’ maybe, or perhaps ‘pick a god and pray.’

“Can I stay with you, Naruto?” She asks, cutting to the heart of the matter. “I promise I can pull my weight.”

Naruto looks briefly shocked, then recovers.

“Hey!” He yells. “You couldn’t be a burden, ya know? You’re still _Sakura!_ ”

She wants to hug him and never let go. She wants to kiss him all over until he’s laughing and begging for freedom. She wants to pile up in a bed with all her boys and stay there until life comes knocking—and then tell life to fuck off for five more minutes.

Hours.

Perhaps five more _years_ , which is precisely what they’re owed.

The clones return laden with to-go containers, sparing her teammate the indignity of being clung to like a leech.

“We’ve got your change, too!” The bold clone announces cheerfully, once they’ve transferred their burden to the single low table in the apartment.

She waves him off.

“Put it in a cup in the kitchen.” She says. “It’ll be my contribution to stuff we need, like soap and uhhh paper towels.”

The clone shrugged like, fair enough, jogged over and dispersed into smoke in full view; the kitchen and living room were not separated in any way.

Naruto falls on the ramen with his usual starved aplomb. Sakura makes him look like a Hyuuga.

“I didn’t think you liked ramen that much!” He notices when she’s three bowls in. “Hey, how’d this happen, anyway? It seems craaazy impossible, but what do I know, ya know?”

“God I missed food.” Sakura says from the midst of inhaling a huge portion of take-out. “Anyway, I can confidently say I know more about spacetime _and_ space time techniques than anyone, alive or dead. We made it possible.”

“I guess.” Naruto scratched the back of his head, slurping the remainder of his own fourth bowl. He catches a glimpse of the old clock on the wall. “Oh, hey—we’re gonna be late to training!”

Sakura glances at it, then squints. Precise time increments, right.

“Teuichi was open this early?” She wonders.

Naruto laughs a little awkwardly, rubbing his head again.

“He opens early for me sometimes, ya know? It’s because he’s really, really nice!”

“I’m glad.” Sakura regards him with a soft expression before wiping her hands off on her pants and standing with a groan and a few pops as she stretches. “Alright, let’s leave this shit for when we get back. Are you ready to go blow Sasuke’s mind?”

Naruto looks at her with full-on stars in his eyes, mouth open with awe.

“ _You grow up to be so freaking cool!_ ” He exclaims, shaking his fists in front of his chest with excitement.

Sakura _laughs_ , loud and from the belly.

“I’m so excited to live with you.” She smiles, ready to blow his mind every day like he’s never stopped blowing hers.

Naruto gulps, blinking hard.

“I’ve never lived with anyone before.” He says, and she reaches out to take his hand without thought.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be amazing at it.” She promises. “I’ll pick up a futon after training.”

Naruto nods, “Mm!” and treats her to a small, honest smile. One day it won’t be so hesitant.

He leads at first, cheerfully filling the silence with chatter that she actually listens to; every so often he turns to her in surprise when she offers a specific response, like he expected her to tune him out eventually. Soon enough she picks up the route; the buildings had all changed, but the Nakano flowed true to near-end.

“—and I bet you know a lot of really, _really_ cool jutsu, do you think you can teach me? Only, I only know the clone jutsu, really, and maybe the sexy jutsu or the henge, kinda, but—oh hey, Teme!”

Naruto waves aggressively, grinning like a lunatic as Sasuke and the bridge come into view. He is _ecstatic_ at the idea of fucking with their teammate. Sakura can’t fault him overmuch, observing fondly.

“ _Dobe_.” Sasuke responds, which tugs at Sakura’s heartstrings. What else has she forgotten about these little shits? “Who’s that.”

It’s flat, unamused.

Naruto’s eyes dart over to her, delighted and extremely curious as to how this will play out.

“Sakura.” She suggests wryly. Sasuke’s eyes narrow.

“You’re using a henge to appear older? Useless.” He snorts, already turning away from them.

“I mean, I used a space-time technique to actually become older, but whatever sharpens your kunai.”

Black eyes fly back to her in disbelief.

“What?”

“I know Uchiha are all about the eyes, but I thought your ears at least worked like normal.”

Sasuke glares at her outright.

“Prove it.” He challenges, haughty.

Naruto starts to protest, yelling loudly, but Sakura settles a hand on his shoulder and strokes her thumb reassuringly without looking away from the Uchiha.

“Sure.” She agrees, glib. “But you’re like stupidly young right now so it’s going to be a pretty one-sided fight."

“Even if you _are_ older, it’s not like you can improve all that much.” Sasuke says skeptically. He says it like it’s a forgone conclusion, a true and inarguable fact. Like Sakura of any universe will never be able to match him.

Her smile stretches over her face, showing off far too many teeth.

“Come at me like you mean to kill me.” She says, standing unarmed in a familiar grassy field. Sasuke will have to leave the bridge to meet her. “Otherwise you won’t challenge me at all.”

“Oh, _please._ ” Sasuke rolls his eyes hard, walking with his hands in his pockets. “Who do you think you are, Kakashi-sensei?”

Oh, that’s _adorable_.

“Kakashi if he ever put an iota of effort into training you, maybe.” She snorts, enjoying the way his eyes narrow at her. “Why don’t you try to learn something, hmm?”

“Why don’t _you_ put your Ryo where your mouth is?” Sasuke launched at her as soon as he finished speaking, diving in with his academy-impressive taijutsu. He and Naruto had honed their own-- wildly different—styles against each other, picking up moves from the other until they could go for hours while Kakashi slacked off with his porn.

She understood now how Kakashi could fight them with one hand occupied, even before the world went to hell in a handbasket and their sensei had gotten far better to cope—as they all had.

She uses a single finger to parry his blows, the better to concentrate on not obliterating that twink.

“Take me _seriously!_ ” Sasuke shouts, moving faster and faster as though he can bridge the skill-gap with pure determination.

“You have my full attention.” She promises, tapping his fists and feet and sending them far astray of any hit.

“Fight back!” He says, half-snarling already. Sakura shrugs easily. She takes a couple steps back and punches the ground, careful to modulate her strength—

No, the ground still fractures and splits, changing as if by magic into so many boulders and flying chunks.

Sasuke starts to leap back only for the ground to quite literally shatter under him, the nearest land suddenly four feet lower than it had been. His heart falls into his stomach and he performs a hasty replacement with a far-away branch, eyeing her with wary eyes on the wayside.

Naruto _cheers_ from the safety of the bridge.

“Whoops.” She blows her bangs out of her face. She’ll be putting _that_ one back together with doton later, she’s sure; Training Ground Three is too important to too many people.

“Well?” She asks, when Sasuke shows no sign of diving back in.

“What’s the point?” He demands, staring at her still. “You’re just _toying_ with me. You could have won at any point.”

He spits at the ground.

“Moron.” Sakura says, not unkindly. “Of course I could win, I’ve got a few years of experience on you. What the fuck do you think is the point of a spar?”

“To win.” Sasuke bites out.

“Wrong. To _learn_.”

“ _You’re_ going to teach _me_?” Skepticism flooded his voice.

“Well, not the super-strength.” She flexed her knuckles. “You don’t have the chakra control for that.”

“I might.”

“ _Two people_ in this world have that chakra control and I’m one of them. Nice try, though.” She laughs out loud, then points to herself. “Medic. Strength. Elemental damage, sometimes.”

Then at Naruto, continuing: “ _Tank_. Endless reserves of chakra. Speed. Seals, at one point.”

Finally, to Sasuke, across her:

“You do point damage. Crowd control, sometimes. Close combat, bladed weapons, bullshit dojutsu.”

“You’re not just older.” Sasuke realizes. “You’re _from the future_.”

Then, quick on his own heels:

“Wait, I pick up Kenjutsu? _When?_ ” right as Naruto demands, “I learn _seals!? Why_?”

“I’m not sure. Sometime in the next three years, definitely.” She points to Naruto. “Because it’s your birthright. You’re an Uzumaki.”

“Is that why exploding tags are so easy?” He asks, curious, right as Sasuke demands, “The idiot has a _Clan?”_

“Yes and yes.” She answers, then pins Sasuke with a look. “Are we going to spar or not?”

“I don’t know.” He says shrewdly. “Are you going to explain what was so bad you _violated the laws of the universe_ to come fix?”

“Smart.” She acknowledges, but says nothing more. Sasuke screams in frustration.

“Alright, fine. You tell me _one_ reason for you to do something like this, and then we fight taijutsu with _no_ chakra and no super-strength, and if I win you tell us the rest.”

“Deal.” Sakura says instantly. She smiles her best Sai smile.

“I’m from the _bad_ timeline.” She says blandly.

Sasuke, predictably, attacks her.

Sakura hasn’t tried to keep her strength back in a fight since she first learned how to break the world with her fists; it’s an interesting lesson. She has only ever sparred with gods and monsters, impossible prodigies who grew alongside her.

She tries, though; for Sasuke, she tries.

She pins him in three minutes flat, during which he has worked up enough sweat to be drenched in it, and she has managed not to break any bones. He grimaces at her, jerking against the forearm she has pressing his wrists against the grass.

He visibly expects it to work, to shove her off and storm away to lick his injured pride; when it doesn’t, his eyes grow wide and he jerks harder. He looks a little _afraid_.

“Don’t be stupid.” Sakura says. “I love you both more than I could possibly express. I’d never hurt you in any way you didn’t _ask_ for.”

That helps nothing.

It lasts longer than it should, him struggling against her, at first violent and then desperate and then, finally, panting and red faced as her expression stays patiently amused.

Then, he averts his gaze _sharply_ and she realizes he’s hard.

“Oh,” Sakura notes, intrigued.

“Shut _up_.” Sasuke hisses. “It’s fucking normal.”

“Yes.” Sakura agrees, slipping her hands until her fingers curl around his wrists without letting him free. “It is.”

She grinds against him and Sasuke’s head flies back, mouth open on a choked noise of surprise. His eyes blink wide, almost sightless.

“ _Sakura!_ ” He shrieks, sounding like Naruto, voice high-pitched and scratchy.

“Has anybody ever told you how this works?” She asks with a grin. His response is cut off, stuttering as his throat closes rough around it; his lashes flutter stupidly. Between them, he grows hotter and harder.

“At—at the academy. Obviously.” Sasuke wets his lips. His eyes are all pupil, expression wrecked, as she drags against him, still holding him down with her hands and her body.

Sakura _laughs_.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” She promises, a little meanly and a touch breathless. His cock jerks and fills out in starts and fits while she moves against him, her eyes half-lidded, everything smelling like sweet sweat and blade oil.

“Have you ever done this before?”

“Not with you,” Sakura bends down to kiss him; that too is a first. “We never had the chance.”

His lips try to follow her, half-buried instinct.

She kisses him again, just because she can. Sighs soft against his lips.

When she pulls back, Sasuke is panting. He watches her like he can’t help himself, hips thrusting wildly into her controlled rhythm.

She bends her teeth to his neck, and he jerks, sound spilling blind from his throat. Sakura nuzzles against him, nipping here and there. Each kiss of teeth causes him to tense, jolts of pleasure he’s clearly never experienced.

All it takes is a brief suck to his pulse-point and he makes a _strangled_ sound, spilling against her messily.

Sakura lets go of his hands. He’s short; she has to maneuver a little to bend his legs back, over her shoulders. The angle is instantly better and what’s more: he’s flexible, like they all are. She pushes his legs to his shoulders with herself between them, grinding him through the aftershocks.

He groans, turning his face away. She keeps it up, slow and hard, until he winces—and then she keeps it up for a few moments longer, until his hands are pushing at her shoulders, begging for a break.

She rolls off him and Sasuke slumps on the grass, boneless and bewildered.

“You’re welcome.” Sakura tells him, a laugh in her voice. He is himself enough to raise one hand, flipping her off weakly.

She looks over to check on Naruto.

He is watching them with a jaw fit to catch flies.

“You want a go?” She asks, opening her arms. “We were being kind of rude, leaving you out.”

Something terribly vulnerable flashes across his face. Sakura keeps her offer open.

“For the spar, or…?” He swallows.

“For whatever you like.” She promises, meaning it with _all_ of herself. Despite this, he looks indecisive; he glances from her to Sasuke and back again.

 _It’s okay_ , she wants to say, so badly. _You can have every bit of us and more._

Kakashi ruins it with his arrival. He flickers in with none of his jovial personality on display. Instead it’s all white steel, honed to a dangerous, lethal edge. He’s not holding a sword; like the best and oldest shinobi, his body is a weapon.

Normally Sakura might look right back, her smile honed to match, but this is the first time she’s seen him alive in longer than she cares to remember.

“YOU!” Sakura yells, shoving to her feet and pointing aggressively; this is as familiar as breathing to Team Seven.

Kakashi tries to dodge, book nowhere in sight, focus deadly—but Sakura is faster. Sakura spars with and fights alongside _Naruto_. She grabs him and pins him against the nearest tree, shoving one hand against his bad eye.

This, too, she has prodigious speed with; even the complex procedure takes but a few moments. There was never any _time_ to heal with the usual speed when the enemy didn’t sleep, tire, eat or even breathe. Sakura had bloody well adapted.

This is something she’s never tried before, but she’s been turning the idea around in the back of her head for years. It had literally haunted her, but you couldn’t heal the dead—not that they needed it.

Not that she’d have had the resources to waste.

“ _There_.” She bares her teeth viciously.

Kakashi blinks awake out of a very small coma.

He blinks two _silver_ eyes.

“What did you do!?” He rasps.

Sakura leans forward and kisses his forehead, her own eyes closing to savor the moment.

“I properly integrated your stupid patch-job transplant.” She explains, mentally exhausted but riding a bright wave of satisfaction. “You are fucking _welcome_.”

Behind them, Naruto and Sasuke have scrambled to their feet and started to rush over.

She officially has all her eggs in one basket. For now.

One powerhouse of an uneducated jinchuuriki. One arrogant and _bratty_ Uchiha. Both touch-starved, both severely _wanting_ for family.

One traumatized jonin in a flak vest, so inured to the miseries of his life that he spends every moment awake either killing people with ruthless efficiency in ANBU or drowning himself in cheerful, escapist fiction.

Naruto sent her back because he was the only one who could power it, and she was the only one who could survive it; she had to hold the chakra together, oceans and aeons of it, as it burned through her and ate the world. They didn’t have the time to find a way to gentle the process; they barely had time to _do_ it.

They’d been interrupted; they had to use what they _had_. It was enough, technically; slipshod and shoddy, with the vortex of time and space ripping through her, and only her desperate chakra keeping her sane and whole, it had worked.

They only needed it to work.

Now she needs _this_ to work; her efforts in a time where she can change _everything_ , including the course of an oncoming war.

So far she has moved in with Naruto so he’s not so _infuriatingly_ alone, and has set the groundwork for dragging Sasuke along in the near future; he won’t want to be left out, not when she’s steadily and surely forging their bonds tighter than they ever were, in her timeline; and now she’s healed Kakashi’s biggest physical weakness, soon to set in on the problem of his most glaring defense mechanism.

It’s hard to disassociate your way through life when it is interesting, when it’s three kids who won’t take ‘no’ for answer, when they _love_ you with all the aggression of three lonely souls who will one day shake the world.

“Come on, Kakashi.” She lets him free and offers him a hand. “We’ve still got work to do.”

He opens both eyes, blinks, and the one bleeds red. Then it changes to burnished silver.

“ _How_?” The broken man demands, one-one hundredth pieced back together. It’s alright, though. She knows where all the shattered pieces lie.

“I’m the best medic in the world.” She says, gently taking his hand when he won’t reach out on his own. “Our team needs us, Kakashi. Not teaching them what they need to _survive_ is just another way to abandon your comrades.”

He winces hard.

“You really are Sakura.” He says, less skeptical and more annoyed. “Do you know how much _paperwork_ I’ll have to do about this?”

“I know Tobirama left a provision for acts of spacetime travel.” She says, before changing tracks. “And I know that it’s worth it.”

Her eyes find the other two, now only missing a handful of her family: Sai’s wan face smiling back at her; Shizune’s endless patience and sly mischief; Yamato’s long-suffering expression on the edges of things; Tsunade, front and center, arms crossed in bold defiance, the various teams of Konoha spilling out behind her strong shadow.

They’re not there, yet. But Team Seven is, and Team Seven will never fracture again. Everything else will fall into place as they go, the most important steps already behind them. Her friends; her family; the village she loves and, hell, the whole damned world; all of it will shape out _exactly_ as she means it to.

And if it’s not there, yet?

She’s got time.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't @ me for the ot3 team seven, i'll fight
> 
> [I'm on tumblr](http://definitelynotaminion.tumblr.com/)
> 
> "Bring me a nation" is a reference to There May Be Some Collateral Damage by metisket. I think all the other references are generic memes or obvious.
> 
> Sakura was changed from 18 to 16 because I felt a bit inappropriate. But the original premise of this was much shorter, where she goes back in time and directly to the Uchiha district like So Help Me I Will Rail That Twink and force him to admit he loves us/needs us/needs human connection, Goddamnit. With a lot more of the dom/sub prompt. It evolved into an actual plot, somehow.


End file.
